


without hesitation

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Minor The Captain/Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019), Post-Episode: s02e03 Redding Weddy, The Captain is Gay (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain's Impenetrable Stiff Upper Lip (Ghosts TV 2019), implied suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28854660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: The Captain had thrown himself on the bomb like he didn't care if he lived or died. And even if he can't die again, Alison can't stop thinking about it.
Relationships: Alison & The Captain (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 97





	without hesitation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Scattered Ashes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27240925) by [Eliza_Farrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliza_Farrow/pseuds/Eliza_Farrow). 



> baby's first ghosts fic! many thanks to Izzy and Kayla for looking this over for me and fixing the bits that were crap! I found it extremely difficult to find decent info about what he could have been doing at Button House so I mostly pulled it out of my arse. SO frustrating, ugh. If you have more historically accurate info, please send it my way!
> 
> I read _Scattered Ashes_ and I desperately needed the actual conversation, but then... well, the Captain happened.

Alison knew this was ridiculous. Ghosts couldn’t die again — that’s what made them ghosts. And yet… and yet here she was, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, Mike snoring beside her. Every time she closed her eyes all she could see was the Captain throwing himself on the bomb before Alison could even get her head around the fact that there was _live ammunition_ in her garden. 

Perhaps that was because the Captain had absolutely known about the bomb but had been too much of a cryptic bastard to say “please, Alison, do not consider getting flames anywhere near that section of the garden where I absolutely buried a bomb that could go off eighty years later because I am a berk who doesn’t know how to communicate essential information”. Perhaps it was misplaced gallantry, a desire to protect the people he had grudgingly grown to love (and as much as he grumbled, Alison knew he did love them — well, maybe not Julian). 

Or perhaps he just didn’t value his life very highly.

Of course, he didn’t _have_ any life to value in any way, but he had admitted that he’d forgotten he was a ghost at all, so — so Alison couldn’t sleep, plagued by the thought of the Captain being so miserable that throwing himself on a bomb sounded like a good idea.

Alison turned on the screen of her phone to check the time, temporarily blinded by the screen informing her that it was 1.08am. Lying here wasn’t getting her anywhere.

As she got up, Mike stirred beside her, lifting his head up enough to squint in her direction. At his very eloquent, “Wha?” she shushed him.

“I’m just getting a drink of water, can’t sleep.”

By the time she was at the door he was snoring again. Sometimes it scared her how quickly he fell asleep. Was that truly normal?

Instead of getting a glass of water she wandered the house, checking on each ghost in turn. They were all dead to the world (haha) in their own beds, though Alison didn’t understand why they needed to sleep at all. When she reached the Captain’s room, instead of sleeping he was sitting by the window, staring out at something. The moon, maybe?

He jumped when she entered, looking for a moment like he was doing something he shouldn’t be before collecting himself and clearing his throat. 

She sat on the bed and looked out of the window, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, just the front drive with its wrought iron gate. The Captain returned to looking out of the window, probably in the hope that Alison would get the message that she wasn’t welcome, and Alison took a moment to study him. She hadn’t turned the light on, but the moon illuminated his face, which looked — wistful? Melancholy? She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the bomb?” Alison said at last, hoping that the Captain wouldn’t be spooked by the question.

“Mine,” the Captain said without turning around.

“What?”

“It was a mine. Limpet mine, for sinking enemy ships.”

She considered pointing out that he had literally said it was a bomb just before he jumped on it, but she had to pick her battles with the Captain.

“Fine then, why didn’t you tell me about the mine?”

The Captain turned around at last, looking cross at her (which was pretty much his default expression). “It was a secret. Military intelligence was very clear on the fact that I was to tell no one except my second.”

Alison rubbed at her eyes with her hand. Most of the ghosts understood that their time was over and the concerns they had in life weren’t relevant anymore, but the Captain clearly struggled with it. 

“Who am I going to tell? We’re not at war with Germany anymore. We’re not at war with anyone, I don’t think, not officially — I mean, we have troops in the Middle East, but I don’t know if that counts? Anyway, the point is that I’m hardly going to tell anyone, and even if I did, I’m pretty sure military technology has moved on.”

The Captain opened his mouth and closed it again, looking lost for a moment. “I guess I got… caught up remembering — before.” He closed his eyes, and Alison would have described his expression on anyone else as ‘pained’. She’d never seen it on his face before.

That did seem plausible, given he’d then jumped on the bomb as if he were still corporeal. He’d never forgotten he was a ghost before, though — he seemed intent on ignoring some of the limitations of being a ghost, sure (he was never going to improve his time running, no matter how often he did it), but he’d always know he couldn’t interact with the real world. No, the living world — the ghosts were as real as anything.

“What did you do during the war? You always talk about, you know, drills and military strategy and how to tell the difference between different heavy artillery, but you never talk about what you did here at Button House.” She hoped the fact that they were alone would help — she got the impression he was most guarded around the other ghosts.

“It’s a secret,” he said. Alison stared at him, raising her eyebrows, and after a moment he relented. “I was in the Royal Engineers.” He then looked at Alison as if that was supposed to mean something, which it absolutely did not. What were they, engineers that worked for the Queen? Why were they in the army?

“What are they?”

He looked at her with a frown, shaking his head as if to declare her a lost cause. “Royal Engineers were in charge of the fortifications and the infrastructure like railways. At Button House we were focused on designing munitions, acutely aware that Fritz was improving their technology all the time. We also kept up our drills and combat training, in the expectation that we would be required to defend Britain should an invasion occur. As the war continued they kept sending away the privates I'd trained to the front and then I would have to start over with another lot. I was the most senior, reporting to Major Chalmondley in London, and my second in command was — a lieutenant.” 

He fell silent, swallowing. There was that expression on his face again, the one that looked pained.

“Did they keep giving you new lieutenants, too?” Alison prompted. This was easily the most the Captain had ever said about his own past, and it didn’t even include any listing of heavy artillery.

"No, I — well, yes. He — after the surrender of France, he — why are you asking me this?" He glared at her, as if suddenly realising she’d tricked him into talking about himself.

"I've never seen you forget that you're a ghost before. I was wondering what had you so distracted, I guess." She shrugged. It would hardly do to say she was worried about him.

“Well, it won’t happen in the future,” he said shortly, drawing himself up and making to turn back to the window.

"No that's not — look, you have _got_ to be much more direct if there are explosives anywhere on the grounds, sure, but I'm not bothered by you forgetting. It just rattled me, seeing you get blown up, even if you actually didn't." Clearly she’d taken the wrong tack, and perhaps if she admitted it he would be more understanding.

It didn’t work.

“You needn’t be concerned, Alison. I’m perfectly fine. I'll inspect the grounds tomorrow for any ordnance that may have been left over from the war.” 

The way he turned back to the window was clearly a dismissal, and Alison knew she wouldn’t get any further tonight.

“Goodnight, then,” she said, getting up. Hopefully she’d be able to sleep now, at least.

* * *

Alison woke up to her whole upper body hurting, and she only got up so she could get some paracetamol out of the cabinet. She brought it and a glass of water to set on the bedside table for Mike, who woke with a groan just as she was setting it down. “I wish I were dead,” he said before seeing the pills and sighing with relief. “I could kiss you. I mean, I will kiss you, as soon as I feel capable of sitting upright.”

Now that she was up, it seemed foolish to go back to bed, especially as all the ghosts would come in and demand what was wrong. She’d never get any peace, so she figured she may as well go downstairs and continue turning the pages of _Lady Chatterley’s Lover_ and play something on youtube for the rest of them.

Once she’d had breakfast and installed most of the ghosts in front of the laptop, she went outside. The Captain had clearly made good on his promise to inspect the grounds — she found him in the garden where the mine had been, and… was he crying?

“Are you crying?” she said, caught off guard.

“No!” the Captain insisted, hastily wiping his eyes. “I most certainly am not. I haven’t cried since I was a young boy still in short trousers, and I do not appreciate you insinuating otherwise.”

His stiff upper lip was exhausting sometimes. Pick your battles, Alison. “Did you find more bombs?” she asked, since that was technically what she’d come outside to ask him.

He glared at her.

“Mines. Did you find any more mines?”

“There are no more explosives that I am aware of, no. I was not stationed here for the entire war, so I cannot be sure, but — it wasn’t standard practice, so you shouldn’t be concerned.”

He was staring at the hole that had formerly contained the mine in much the same way people looked at graves.

"What are you doing back in this part of the garden?" she asked, almost certain he would refuse to answer and then avoid her for the rest of the day because she'd seen he was a human being who sometimes had emotions.

Instead, he continued looking into the hole as he said, "I miss him — them. The regiment. No one here understands the importance of the information I keep trying to tell them, and I miss having a purpose, a common goal we were all working towards. I can't even touch anything now, and — all I've got is a past no one cares about."

Alison made an aborted motion to hug him before she remembered she couldn't. "Maybe you could talk about yourself more? We all care about you, Captain, but none of us are preparing for war. If you like, I could write down... whatever you want. Your life story, maybe. Your recollections of the war. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do anything with them, since we can't exactly authenticate them, but I'd listen, at least."

The Captain turned away from the hole, closing his eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath and looking at her. "You'll let me detail our training regimen and the heavy artillery we designed?"

"Yeah," Alison said, though she was beginning to regret this idea already.

"And perhaps — perhaps you could look up some war records for me?"

"It would be my pleasure."


End file.
